Because You Told Me to Go
by Mnemosyne's Elegy
Summary: Gray had told Natsu to go, but he would have also expected the dragon slayer to come back. Natsu does come back eventually, after his one-year training trip, but by then it's far too late.
1. Part 1

**Note: This whole project is actually two pieces - this story has three parts, and then there's a much longer sequel called "Because I Need You to Stay". (And now there's another two-shot as a sort of epilogue for "Stay", this called "Because I Never Told You".) This piece sets up the sequel. It's labeled angst/tragedy for a reason, but the sequel isn't as depressing and has a happy ending (you're welcome).**

 **You'll notice that this first part follows the final battle between Gray and Natsu vs. Mard Geer pretty closely right up until the point where Gray defeats Mard Geer, and then it starts diverging from canon.**

* * *

Watching Gray fall was one of the most terrible, and terrifying, experiences of Natsu's life. The dragon slayer slowly dropped his arms from where they had been raised protectively in front of his face, and stared at his friend in shock.

"Gray…" he breathed.

The ice mage had somehow maneuvered himself to be directly in front of Natsu so that he had taken the full force of Mard Geer's ultimate curse. Memento Mori had been meant to destroy all traces of the two mages and wipe them from existence, but Gray was somehow still standing, despite being hit by it head-on. Half of his body had been taken over by horrible black markings and he was breathing heavily—in pain or exhaustion, Natsu didn't know—but he was still standing.

And then he fell, and it was as if Natsu was watching in slow motion. Mard Geer was saying something about this being impossible and Gray was saying something about believing in Natsu, but the dragon slayer barely heard them. He stared at Gray's motionless form in horror and disbelief.

This curse was meant to destroy completely, to obliterate someone from existence. It was a curse that Mard Geer thought was strong enough to destroy Zeref himself, the immortal dark wizard. Whatever strange new demon magic Gray had acquired might have saved his life, but with a curse that strong…

"A mere human?!" Mard Geer howled in disbelieving fury, a purple light springing up around his body as he began transforming back into his etherious form.

Natsu tore his gaze away from Gray's prone form, his head snapping up so that he could fix the demon with a burning gaze. His shock and disbelief faded as anger and hatred took their place. Gray wasn't 'mere' anything.

"Gray!" he screamed.

His transformation completed, Mard Geer jumped into the air. Natsu snarled up at him, his fury growing and swirling about him. Gray was lying on the ground, possibly terribly injured, and this _demon_ was the one to blame.

"Dammit!"

His fury was so strong that Natsu could feel himself pushing into dragon force, a feat he had never before accomplished without some kind of outside assistance. But he was so damn _angry_ —and scared, although he wouldn't admit it—and he would make Mard Geer pay for what he had done. And for now he would just have to trust that Gray would be alright, because the ice mage was tough and wouldn't give up.

When Mard Geer came hurtling towards Natsu, the dragon slayer sent him flying with a fiery punch and then raced after him, hitting him with everything he had left to give. It wasn't enough, of course. Apparently not even dragon force could stand up to a demon, but Natsu knew a power that could.

He had done all that he could. He grimaced slightly as Mard Geer recovered from the last attack, but he couldn't fight anymore. The dragon slayer plummeted from the sky, unable to move at all. He was out of energy, out of magic, and out of strength. But just maybe…

Natsu grunted in pain as Mard Geer swooped down and grabbed him, but he didn't have the strength to fight the demon anymore.

"I'm going to demolish every inch of your body!" Mard Geer hissed, preparing to unleash his wrath on the now defenseless mage.

Yes, the demon would be able to do that and Natsu couldn't stop him, but there might just be someone who could.

"I'm impressed," Natsu said slowly, fighting his exhaustion and pain. "My magic's at zero."

"Die!" Mard Geer screamed.

However, Natsu wasn't finished just yet. "But…I believe too."

Below him, Gray staggered to his feet, swaying slightly before he steadied himself enough to use his magic. Natsu could hear Mard Geer's wordless sound of surprise, and the dragon slayer smirked a little.

"Gray!" he called.

The ice mage didn't respond verbally, but a huge bow of ice appeared in his hands and in one seamless motion, he drew back and shot. Mard Geer screamed in pain as he was pierced by an array of gigantic, jagged pieces of ice. The demon released Natsu as the ice broke through his etherious form and sent him plunging from the sky.

The dragon slayer fell as well, hurtling towards the ground at an alarming speed. He closed his eyes and braced for impact, knowing that he had no way of stopping his descent now. But instead of crashing into the ground with devastating impact, a pair of strong arms caught him.

Gray grunted in pain and was driven to one knee by the force of Natsu's impact, but he didn't let go. Natsu blinked up at him uncertainly for a moment, still too weak to even think about moving. He wondered how Gray had made it across the crater in time to catch him as he fell, but quickly moved on from such a trivial concern.

There were more important things to worry about, such as the fact that Gray wasn't looking too good. The dark markings had disappeared from his body, but Gray was even paler than usual, and Natsu could feel his arms shaking under the pressure of keeping the dragon slayer off the ground. The ice mage's head was bowed, his dark hair shadowing his face, and he was breathing heavily. Natsu couldn't tell for sure, but he thought that Gray's mouth was twisted in a pained grimace. Gray had done a great job of defeating Mard Geer, but Natsu wondered just how much Memento Mori had really affected him.

"Gray…Are you alright?" Natsu asked in concern, grimacing slightly at his own weakness and exhaustion.

"I—I don't—" the ice mage started, before they were both distracted by Zeref's appearance.

Grunting with effort, Natsu managed to shake off Gray's support and get to his feet, his muscles screaming in protest. He was still exhausted and out of magic, but he wasn't going to face Zeref lying down. Beside him, Gray also rose to his feet. Out of the corner of his eye, the dragon slayer noticed how slow and jerky his movements were, and how he swayed unsteadily on his feet.

Natsu didn't really care when the dark mage destroyed Mard Geer. The demon had been a pain in the neck and he had very nearly killed Gray. He wasn't even that concerned when Zeref took the Book of E.N.D. He could hunt down the wizard and get the book back later. He barely even cared when the enemy spoke a few more words and then disappeared as if he had never been there at all. He could deal with Zeref later. His main concern right now was still Gray, because he couldn't believe that the ice mage hadn't sustained any lasting damage from that damn curse.

As soon as Zeref vanished, Natsu turned back to the ice mage. There was a strange, unsteady look in Gray's eyes, and Natsu opened his mouth to ask again if he was alright.

But for the second time, he was distracted. Igneel and Acnologia went hurtling through the sky over their heads, and Natsu turned to watch them as they crashed into the ground some distance away. Sudden fear stabbed at his heart.

"Igneel…"

Natsu needed to go and make sure that his father was okay. He needed to go, but…He looked back over at Gray. He also needed to stay.

"Go to him," the ice mage encouraged, his breathing still shallow and uneven. "But…" Natsu hesitated. He realized suddenly that Gray had never answered his earlier question. "Are you alright, Gray?"

For a moment the ice mage didn't answer and something flickered in his dark eyes. Then he straightened up to his full height and looked over at Natsu with a renewed sense of determination in his eyes.

"I'm fine," he said.

Natsu still didn't move, torn between the need to go to Igneel and the desire to stay with his friend. "But—"

" _Go_ ," Gray interrupted.

He met Natsu's gaze and nodded firmly. The dragon slayer hesitated a moment longer. Gray's eyes said that he was fine and that Natsu should go to Igneel before it was too late. Surely Gray wouldn't _lie_ to Natsu, so there was no reason for the dragon slayer to feel this faint sense of unease about it.

His gaze slid past Gray and came to rest on the two twin dragon slayers who were slowly recovering from their fight with Jiemma. They had arrived a short time before, and although they had sustained some injuries, they looked like they'd be fine. Natsu met their eyes. They hesitated a moment, glancing at each other and then at Gray, before returning their gazes to Natsu and nodding. Satisfied that they would be here in case anything happened to Gray, Natsu nodded to the ice mage, turned, and ran off, pushing Gray out of his mind as he focused on reaching his father.

Since he left, he didn't see how Gray swayed unsteadily on his feet and collapsed as soon as the dragon slayer had disappeared from sight. He didn't hear Sting and Rogue calling to Gray frantically as they rushed to the fallen mage's side. He didn't see how Gray's entire body was racked with tremors or how the ice mage's dark eyes took on a terribly vacant look. He didn't see Gray begin to cough up blood, dark pools of crimson liquid seeping into the ground as the twin dragon slayers desperately tried to figure out a way to stop the blood loss. He didn't see how Rogue stayed by Gray's side as Sting ran off in a desperate search for someone who could help.

He didn't know that Gray was slipping away in a nightmare of spreading blood and convulsive shaking and terrible, ragged breaths. Because he left, he didn't know.

And because he didn't know, he left again.

* * *

 **Note: I was lying awake one night, and suddenly thought "oh my gosh, wouldn't it be super depressing if Gray died from Memento Mori and Natsu didn't even know until he came back from his training trip a year later?" I was originally going to leave it as a tragic little one- or two-shot, but then I came up with this whole convoluted loophole by which we could have a happy ending after all, so that's what the second story is.**

 **Also, I know that Natsu apparently waited a little while before leaving in the manga, but I need him to leave right away in order for the plot to work.**


	2. Part 2

**Note:** **I just want to quickly address something a reviewer said, namely that it's hard to really justify Natsu feeling guilty in this situation. Again, this is in no way Natsu's fault. For one, Gray would have still 'died' if Natsu had stayed, and he also lied to Natsu in saying that he was fine when he wasn't. With the information he had at the time, combined with the grief and shock of Igneel's death, Natsu had valid reasons for leaving and was justified in doing so. _However_ , guilt is not always a rational emotional, and there are a few elements that could lead to Natsu feeling guilty anyway. For one, Gray 'died' because he protected Natsu from Memento Mori, so there's survivor's guilt there. In addition, Natsu noticed that Gray didn't look so well at first, even though he believed Gray when he said he was fine. So some part of Natsu would believe that he _should_ have realized that something was wrong instead of dismissing his initial worries. Plus there's just the general grief and guilt about not being there for Gray when he 'died'. I _do_ believe that Natsu would still feel some measure of guilt, whether or not that's really justified. Sorry for the rant. Not sure if it really makes sense or if it just devolved into psychobabble, but that's basically my train of thought. (EDIT: No, you're right: I _am_ a psych major. It's real interesting stuff and I'm glad you find it interesting too. Thanks again for the reviews-I wasn't trying to call you out or anything. Just kind of wanted to explain my view.)**

* * *

Crashing the Grand Magic Games was an exhilarating experience, and it had another unexpected benefit that made Natsu consider it a smashing success and fantastic decision on his part. Taking out the winning team in half a second—how had these losers even won? Where was Fairy Tail?—was thoroughly satisfying, but seeing Lucy for the first time in a year was even more exciting.

"Hey, Happy! Look! It's Lucy!"

Natsu pointed to where he had spotted the blonde celestial spirit mage a short distance away.

"Yay!" Happy cheered. "Lucy!"

The girl was staring at them in shock, her eyes wide and brimming with emotion. Natsu and Happy raced over with grins on their faces.

"Hey, Lucy," Natsu greeted her. "Long time no see."

Lucy stared at them for a moment longer before a wavering smile spread across her face. "You came back," she whispered.

Natsu arched an eyebrow at her. "Of course we did," he said. "I told you that I'd come back after I trained for a while." He glanced around, wondering why Lucy was the only one from their guild here. "Where is everyone?"

"Oh," she said after a moment. "I guess you wouldn't know. Fairy Tail disbanded."

Natsu blinked at her in stunned disbelief, unable to wrap his head around this new development. "Fairy Tail…disbanded? What?"

Lucy nodded, her eyes sad. "Right after we beat Tartaros. We still aren't sure exactly why, but the master disbanded the guild and encouraged us all to go our separate ways. Everyone has moved on to do their own thing now." She sighed. "I'm only here because I'm working at the Weekly Sorcerer now."

Natsu stared at her blankly, wanting to believe that this was some kind of stupid joke. Her eyes said otherwise.

"I can't believe it," he said slowly, his mind reeling. "Disbanded? That's terrible. We're going to have to find everyone again now." He paused. "Congrats on your new job though."

"Thanks," Lucy replied. Her eyes lit up a little. "It does have some perks. It's helped me keep tabs on everyone. I've tried to stay in touch with as many people as I can and I keep notes on where they currently are when I run across information while doing my job."

Natsu perked up at that and a grin spread across his face. "So then we can hunt everyone down and reform the guild!" he exclaimed.

Lucy smiled. "Yeah."

"What are we waiting for? Let's get started! We should go find Gray first. I haven't gotten to fight the ice block in a year now and I can't wait to show him how much stronger I've gotten. I'm going to beat him for sure!"

Lucy's hopeful expression immediately dropped away, to be replaced with a look of unbearable grief and anguish. "We can't," she whispered.

Natsu eyed her uneasily, unsure of what had brought about this sudden change of attitude. "Don't tell me you lost him?" he asked uncertainly.

Lucy's eyes welled with tears and her lips trembled. "Yeah," she said quietly, her voice choked with tears. "We lost him."

There was something about the slight emphasis that Lucy put on the word 'lost' that made Natsu think that she meant something completely different than he had. Fear slowly spread through his body.

"What do you mean?" he questioned. "What happened to Gray?"

"Oh, Natsu," Lucy whispered, her entire body shaking slightly as her tears spilled over and rolled down her cheeks. "Gray is dead."

The world seemed to grind to a halt.

Natsu stared at Lucy blankly, unable to believe what she was telling him. That was impossible. Gray wouldn't have the gall to die when Natsu was gone. No way.

"How?" he asked mechanically, still trying to process this new information. "When?"

"When?" Lucy repeated. She let out a shaky breath. "I'm so sorry, Natsu. He died right after you left."

Natsu's gaze sharpened immediately as he searched Lucy's tearstained face. "What?"

"You never came back after...Igneel's death. And God, I'm sorry about that too." Lucy swallowed thickly, fresh tears springing to her eyes as she fixed her gaze on the ground. "You ran off on your training mission right away, so you didn't know.

"It was that curse he got hit with."

Natsu stopped breathing.

"Sting and Rogue were with him and they could probably explain what happened better than I can. I was—I was too much of a mess to really pay attention to everything they said, but I guess he collapsed right after you left. Sting came and found us and brought us to him, but there was nothing we could do."

Lucy's eyes took on a haunted look. "It was terrible. He was convulsing and seizing and his eyes were open but they weren't looking at anything. And there was blood everywhere. So much blood. He was coughing it up and shaking and the blood was everywhere and we tried so hard to save him but we couldn't."

She was shaking hard now, wringing her hands together and rocking back and forth on her heels. She was sobbing openly as she babbled on, her words running over each other as they poured from her mouth.

"We called Porlyusica. I don't know how she managed it, but she kept him alive for two whole days. But even she couldn't save him. And you could tell it was horrible, because even she was shaken, and she was really upset when she lost him. He died and we buried him and you left and Fairy Tail disbanded and everything fell apart."

Natsu watched her dissolve into sobs, a nauseous feeling twisting his insides.

"He told me he was fine," the dragon slayer said hollowly.

He realized that his body had begun to tremble as well as his initial shock began wearing off and he started making crucial connections. He remembered that the first time he had asked Gray if he was alright, the ice mage had sounded uncertain. He had been interrupted before he could tell Natsu whatever it was he was feeling, and the second time the dragon slayer had asked, Gray had claimed to be fine.

And he had told Natsu to go to Igneel.

Oh, God. Natsu felt sick as he put the pieces together. Gray had told Natsu he was fine so that the dragon slayer would be able to go after Igneel with a clear conscience. It had been a gift of sorts. But Gray would have also expected Natsu to come back, and Natsu hadn't. He hadn't come back until it was too late.

When Natsu had reached his father's side, Igneel was already dying. The dragon slayer had been so devastated and grief-stricken that he had completely forgotten about Gray. The ice mage had said he was fine and he hadn't actually looked like he was on death's door when Natsu had left, so the dragon slayer had assumed that he'd be alright and that Sting and Rogue would help him if he did need anything. Natsu had been so wrapped up in Igneel's death that he hadn't even realized that he was losing someone else important to him. He had been able to stay by Igneel's side as he died, but he had left Gray behind.

Natsu hadn't felt like he could stand to face his friends after watching Igneel die in front of his eyes, so he had left Lucy a note and run off to train immediately as a way to cope. And now he would never be able to face Gray again. He had just finally started coming to terms with Igneel's death, only to find out that there was still so much left to grieve for.

"He lied to me," Natsu said dully. "He told me to go, so I left." He blinked at Lucy and Happy vacantly. "Damn."

"I'm sorry, Natsu," Lucy said, her voice wavering. "But he would have died anyway, even if you hadn't left."

Natsu just shook his head numbly. "That's not the point. I was worried about him because that curse was so damn powerful, but once I watched Igneel die…I was so in shock, so devastated, that I forgot about him. I didn't know that he was dying too. And I left. I left when he needed me." His eyes took on a haunted cast. "He would have expected me to come back, but I didn't. I just…left."

He logically knew that none of this was his fault, knew that staying with Gray wouldn't have changed anything, knew that at the time the decision to leave had been justified with the information he had had to work with, knew that he hadn't truly done anything wrong. And yet…And yet he still felt terrible, a mix of grief and unwarranted guilt clawing at his insides.

"I'm sorry," Lucy repeated, as if she didn't know what else to say. "But he cared about you a lot, so he would have understood."

"So?" Natsu asked, starting to shake off some of his stupor. "He can't understand anything now, can he? He told me to go, so I left. But I left under the assumption that he would still be here when I got back. And he's _not_. He was supposed to stay. I come back and he's gone? What's left now?"

"We could still go find everyone else," Happy ventured uncertainly, rubbing at his watering eyes with his little blue paws. "It won't—It won't be the same, but it's better than staying here by ourselves."

Natsu didn't reply immediately. Yes, Happy was right that Fairy Tail needed to be reformed. But it was also true that Fairy Tail needed Gray, and Gray wasn't here anymore. The dragon slayer finally looked up again.

"Sting and Rogue are still at Sabertooth?" he asked flatly.

Lucy and Happy exchanged looks.

"Yes," Lucy answered slowly, trying to figure out where Natsu was going with this. "But none of our guildmates joined Sabertooth. I mean, a few of them have joined other guilds like Lamia Scale or Blue Pegasus, but no one went to Sabertooth."

"Okay." Natsu took a deep breath. "You two can start gathering everyone together again."

"And you?" Happy asked hesitantly, his eyes brimming with concern.

"I'm going to Sabertooth," Natsu replied shortly.

"But—"

"I _have_ to," Natsu interrupted. "I was the one who left him to die. I have to know exactly what happened. Sting and Rogue were there. They can…they can tell me everything that happened."

"Natsu…It was horrible. It was really, really horrible. It's better if you don't have to hear all the details," Lucy said quietly, fresh tears welling in her eyes.

Natsu stared at her expressionlessly for a moment. She was probably right. It was probably better if he didn't know all the gory details. But Natsu _had_ to know. He had to know everything, because he hadn't been there. He owed Gray at least that much.

"I have to," he said simply.

Lucy and Happy glanced at each other again, and the blonde mage let out a shuddering sigh. Understanding and resignation shone in her eyes.

"We can come with you."

Natsu took in the barely concealed pain and fear and reluctance in Lucy's face, and shook his head. "No. I'll go alone."

This was something he had to do, but he didn't need to drag the others along with him. He had no doubt that it would be as horrible as Lucy feared. The celestial spirit mage had already had to live the nightmare once, and Natsu didn't want her to have to live it again. And Happy shouldn't have to either. Just hearing what Lucy had said was already bad enough. No, this was Natsu's penance—his punishment—for a crime he hadn't exactly committed. The others needn't come.

Lucy tried to conceal her relief at his declaration, but Happy looked as if he might protest.

"You need to go with Lucy," Natsu told him quietly. "She could use your help rounding everyone else up. It's too big a job to do alone."

"But—"

"I'll be okay, Happy," Natsu lied.

The little cat still looked unhappy, but Lucy gave him a wobbly smile.

"It'll be nice working with you again, Happy," she told the Exceed.

Natsu wondered if she was trying to convince Happy to come with her for the dragon slayer's sake or the Exceed's. It could be that she was helping Natsu get his way, but it might also be that she wanted to spare Happy whatever it was that the dragon slayer would be forced to confront.

Happy nodded slowly, his eyes still conflicted. He looked at Natsu with concern, clearly unhappy about having to leave his friend to face such a terrible thing on his own.

"Aye sir," he said unenthusiastically.

"When I'm finished, I'll find you by where the old guild hall was," Natsu suggested.

"You will…You will come back and meet us, right?" Lucy asked fearfully, unconsciously hugging herself.

The words stabbed Natsu like a knife to his gut, but he tried to conceal his reflexive wince. He knew that Lucy was probably just worried because he had left her behind to go training with only a letter to tell her what happened, but her words reminded him too much of how he had left Gray and not returned until after his best friend was dead.

"Yeah," he said hoarsely, after taking a few seconds to collect himself. He couldn't quite meet her eyes. "I'll come back this time."

And he would. He wouldn't make the same mistake again.

He felt strangely reluctant to turn around and take that first step, because there was a quiet fear whispering in the corner of his mind, telling him that if he walked away, he may never see Lucy or Happy again. But this was something he had to do, so he took a deep breath and walked away.

* * *

Fear and shame and regret made Natsu want to curl up in a ball and postpone the inevitable, but he forced himself to go straight to Sabertooth. Pushing his way into the guild hall, he looked around and immediately made a beeline for Sting and Rogue, who were having some kind of teasing discussion in the corner. Normally Natsu might barge in and join the fun, but today he wasn't in the mood.

The twin dragon slayers looked up and spotted Natsu heading towards them. Their faces lit up as they saw him for the first time in a year.

"Natsu-san! How are…?"

Sting trailed off, noticing Natsu's expression. He and Rogue exchanged looks, and all their energy seemed to drain away as they realized why their fellow dragon slayer had come.

"I need to know," Natsu said, stopping directly in front of the Sabertooth mages. "I need to know everything."

There was a long pause.

"What do you already know?" Rogue asked quietly, his crimson eyes clouded with regret.

"That Gray is dead."

There was an ugly silence.

"I ran into Lucy today," he continued. "This wasn't the news I was expecting. She told me that Gray was dead—that he died from Mard Geer's curse. She also told me a little bit about…about how he died. But she said that you two would be able to tell me more, and I need to know everything that happened. _Everything_."

Sting bit his lip. His expression had turned sad, but he still looked hesitant to tell Natsu what the Fairy Tail wizard needed to know.

"It was pretty bad, Natsu-san," he hedged. "I don't think—"

"No." Natsu cut him off preemptively. "I want to hear every single last detail, no matter how horrible. I was the one who left him. I didn't even know he was dead until a few hours ago. I need to hear everything. I _need_ to."

Sting didn't look convinced. "I really don't think that—"

Rogue touched his arm and shook his head. The shadow dragon slayer looked both resigned and understanding. Natsu thought that perhaps with his darker past, he could better understand Natsu's desperate need than Sting could. Sting still looked torn, but then reluctantly deferred to Rogue and fell silent.

"It was right after you left," Rogue began, his eyes glazing over slightly as he forced himself to remember that terrible day. "And I do mean _right_ after you left. I know he said he was fine, but he obviously wasn't and he knew it. He collapsed as soon as you were out of sight."

Natsu unconsciously clenched his hands into fists as Rogue confirmed what he had already suspected. Gray had known something was wrong when he told Natsu to go. He had only said that he was fine so that Natsu had the opportunity to say goodbye to Igneel instead of feeling obligated to stay by Gray's side.

"We—We tried everything we could. We really did," Rogue continued, his voice wavering slightly.

Natsu hadn't seen the shadow dragon slayer display this much emotion in all the time he had known him, but Rogue's disinterested façade was cracking now.

"I know," Natsu said quietly, needing them to know that he didn't blame them for whatever had happened. "It's not your fault. I didn't come here to make accusations. I just need to know what happened."

Rogue nodded and took a deep breath to collect himself. "Well, he collapsed and we were calling to him, but he didn't answer. I don't—I don't know if he heard us. I'm not sure how lucid he was at that point. I mean, his eyes were open, but they were so empty and sightless, and he never responded to anything. And his skin was so hot. He was burning up, but then he'd suddenly get really cold and then hot again. And his whole body was shaking. It started off as just a kind of mild trembling, but then it escalated to the point where he was shaking all over and convulsing, and it almost looked like he was having some kind of seizures at some points.

"We were trying to hold him down and keep him still, but then he started coughing up blood. God, there was so much of it." Rogue's voice trembled and his eyes took on a haunted look. "He was losing so much blood and we couldn't even stop it because it wasn't like he had a physical wound or anything—he was just coughing it up."

He lifted his shaky hands slightly and studied them, as if he could still see the crimson liquid that had coated them. He unconsciously rubbed them together in a washing motion, as if he could erase the memory of the blood that had stained them.

"And then Sting went to go find some of your guildmates to help. I stayed with Gray, and he just got worse and worse. The shaking got so bad that I couldn't even hold him down anymore, and he kept coughing up all this blood and it was spreading everywhere. And the only thing I could hear was these terrible, ragged breaths he was taking. He didn't scream or anything, and I kept thinking that he should be screaming because it looked so damn painful and the whole thing was horrible, but it was so _quiet_. I mean, he should have been screaming, you know? But he wasn't. He wasn't screaming but there was blood everywhere and he was convulsing so terribly and I couldn't do _anything_ and I—"

He broke off his increasingly frantic rambling as Sting grasped his hand. The longer he had talked, the more agitated he had become. It was clear that Gray's death still haunted him. His entire body was trembling and his eyes were filled with anguish and despair, even as they brimmed with unshed tears.

"Sorry, I—Sorry," he choked out.

Natsu numbly brushed his fingers across Rogue's arm in a vaguely comforting motion. "It's okay," he said mechanically. "I'm the one who should be sorry. I know it must be hard for you to relive it."

Sting looked between Rogue and Natsu uncertainly. "Isn't that enough?" he asked, his voice taking on a pleading edge. "Surely you don't have to know _everything_."

Natsu understood why Sting was so reluctant to continue the tragic tale. He would fear for both his and Rogue's mental state in having to relive that terrible experience, and he would also worry about how Natsu would take it. He was afraid that all three of them would fall apart.

Natsu understood that, but it didn't change the fact that he needed to hear it all. He felt terrible for asking the Sabertooth slayers to relive such a traumatic event, but he needed them to finish.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly, "but I need to hear it all."

Sting still looked hesitant, but when Rogue took a deep breath and seemed to be preparing himself to continue the story, he hurriedly stepped in.

"I can handle it from here," he said quickly, watching Rogue with worried eyes. "You pretty much told your part already. You weren't there when I went for help anyway."

The shadow dragon slayer nodded slightly in acknowledgment and let his gaze drift away. He clasped his trembling hands together and listened to Sting's part of the story in silence.

Natsu watched the two Sabertooth mages' silent interactions and communication, and felt his heart twist painfully. He had had a close relationship like that with Gray, once upon a time. And now it was gone, because he had left.

"By the time I left, he was already in pretty bad shape," Sting said quietly. "There was the blood, of course, and the shaking. Although he wasn't seizing when I left—that came after, when only Rogue was there to deal with it. We had been trying to talk to him and get him to answer us, but I don't think he was aware of much at that point. It kind of looked like he was…I don't know, reliving something, maybe? I got the feeling that he was seeing something, experiencing something, but it was something that we couldn't see. That really worried me a lot, and then there was all that blood. We were afraid he'd die right there if we couldn't find someone who could help, because nothing we did made a difference.

"So I left Rogue with him and I went to go find someone else from Fairy Tail. I thought about going after you, but I didn't think you'd be able to do much either. I hoped that maybe Wendy could do something with her healing, so I went searching for her. I eventually ran into some of your guildmates. It's…I guess it's hard to remember who, exactly, because I was so panicked by that point and the details didn't seem so important when I thought about it later. I think it might have been Gajeel and Levy. Lucy might have been there too. They helped me find Wendy. Porlyusica came as well. She was still around taking care of Laxus and the others after that whole business with the anti-magic particles."

Sting's voice was steady and almost detached, but he was unconsciously digging his fingernails into his palms.

"I told the others where Gray was and they went off to hunt down the rest of Fairy Tail while I took Wendy and Porlyusica to him. He was—He was a lot worse when we got there. He was seizing and coughing up blood even worse than before, and Rogue was panicking trying to talk to him, but he still wasn't responding."

Sting swallowed hard and his gaze drifted away from Natsu as a slight tremble entered his voice.

"Wendy tried first, but her healing powers weren't having any effect on him. I don't know what the hell went into that curse, but it brushed off her magic like it was nothing. And then Porlyusica tried. She couldn't do anything about the curse, of course, but she tried treating some of the symptoms—the convulsing and the blood loss and the temperature swings and everything. She never quite managed to stabilize him, but she slowed the curse down enough that he hung on for a couple days before he…"

The Sabertooth mage paused and bowed his head to hide the tears gathering in the corners of his eyes.

"Well, we found a place for him to rest near where your guild hall was before it was destroyed, and Porlyusica stayed by his side and tried to save him. Almost nothing fazes that woman, but she was really shaken up by his condition. I mean, we all were, but we knew that it was really bad when she started panicking."

He broke off and took a deep breath to collect himself before continuing. Natsu stared at him numbly, that nauseous feeling intensifying once more. Natsu thought that he should probably be crying by now since this was so damn sad, but he listened to Sting in something of a detached daze. He still couldn't quite wrap his head around it. All this talk of blood and shaking and dying…He couldn't envision it happening to Gray. Later he was sure that the pain and grief would hit him full force, but for now Natsu just felt numb and cold.

"I went looking for you," Sting continued, his voice wavering. "Rogue and most of Fairy Tail stayed with Gray, but you never showed up, so I went to find you. I thought to start where we had seen Igneel and Acnologia hit the ground, so I went there first. I found Igneel's body."

He paused and looked over at Natsu with sad eyes. "I'm sorry about that, I really am."

Natsu nodded, hurriedly pushing away the grief that came with hearing his father's name again. He would have to face that pain again later, but right now he was grieving for Gray instead. He motioned for Sting to continue.

"But you weren't there, of course," the other dragon slayer said. "I tried following your scent trail, but I ended up losing it. My nose has never been as good as yours, and the whole area was a muddle of scents since wizards and demons had been running about everywhere. I kept sweeping the area hoping to pick up your scent or run across you, but I never did find you. I guess that by that point you had already went to…wherever you went after the battle but before you left on your training trip. Lucy found your note in her apartment a while after that, so I guess you stopped by there and then left.

"Anyway, I searched for hours before giving up and heading back. Rogue and I could have left at that point, I suppose, but we couldn't make ourselves leave when Gray was in such a bad state, especially since you had asked us to take care of him. Besides…" His eyes took on a troubled look. "By the time I got back, things had changed."

Natsu braced himself to hear about whatever this change might be. As if everything else wasn't bad enough already. How much had Gray suffered before he died?

Sting made to continue, but Rogue cut him off. The shadow dragon slayer had managed to compose himself again, although he still had a fragile, vulnerable look to him, as if he might fall apart again at any moment.

"Things didn't start changing until a couple hours after Sting left," Rogue broke in quietly. Sting swallowed and leaned back, giving his friend the floor. "It wasn't super obvious at first—it was a sort of gradual thing. Porlyusica's medicines had helped with the tremors and coughing a little. His body temperature kept fluctuating, but it was milder, so that he wasn't burning up or freezing anymore. And he was still shaking and sometimes coughing up blood, but it wasn't nearly as bad.

"And then his symptoms started worsening again, but we gradually realized that they were a little different. He started muttering things under his breath. Nothing coherent enough for us to understand, even though we tried. We didn't realize it at first, but it eventually became obvious that it was following a pattern, for the most part. He would start mumbling things and moving about restlessly and convulsing and coughing and heating up, and then he'd calm down for a while before starting the cycle over again.

"He wasn't talking to us—he still wasn't lucid. I don't want to say that he was _hallucinating_ or anything, but it seemed kind of like fever dreams, where he was experiencing something in his mind that we couldn't see. And it was on this loop, like he was reliving something over and over again."

Rogue took a shuddering breath and let it out, closing his eyes briefly as he considered his next words.

"In his in-between periods he sometimes seemed to gain some kind of conscious awareness. His eyes were open a lot of the time, but you could tell that he wasn't seeing anything because they were so blank and empty. But occasionally a light would come back into them and it looked like he was actually at least semi-aware of what was going on. Sometimes he would even glance around and look directly at us, but he never acknowledged anything we said or spoke himself. Sometimes he would just look around the room and I'd get the feeling that he was searching for something. If he was, then I don't think he found it. I think he was semi-lucid, but still too hazy to be completely conscious.

"Those times only came in his in-between periods, mind you. We called them his cycles, with the fever dreams and in-between periods. At first there were a few hours between his fever dreams, but his in-between periods gradually got shorter and shorter. Soon his cycle was only taking a couple hours, and then just an hour or so, and then just a half hour, and then only a few minutes. Towards the end…" Rogue trailed off and cleared his throat. He managed to keep talking past the lump in his throat. "Towards the end it was like he was just reliving something over and over again, with no in-between periods at all. He wasn't at all lucid at that point

"This all took place in the better part of two days, of course, so it was more gradual than it sounds. It was still—It was still terrible though. At first it was like we were watching him gradually slip away, but towards the end it started escalating. And then all at once he went into these terrible seizures where we could barely hold him down even with one of us trying to pin each limb, and his back was arching so much that I thought his spine would snap. His feverish mumblings got really frantic and desperate, but then he suddenly started coughing up huge quantities of blood and we had to turn him over so that he wouldn't choke on it. I thought the blood was bad before, but this was like a damn _ocean_ of blood. I can't believe he even had that much left in him. It just kept coming and coming, and then suddenly everything stopped."

Rogue's trembling had started up again as his eyes glazed over and a faintly horrified expression spread across his face. His voice wavered and cracked as he tried to force out his words in a semi-coherent fashion.

"One moment we fighting with all our power to keep him still, and the next he just stopped moving. The blood stopped coming and those terrible noises he was making stopped, and his eyes were still open, but they were so _dead_ and—"

He broke off and wrapped his arms around himself as he began rocking back and forth slightly, his crimson eyes filled with tears and horrified anguish. Sting wrapped an arm around him comfortingly, but the white dragon slayer looked almost as broken as his friend. Natsu exhaled shakily, letting out a breath he hadn't even realized he had been holding. The three dragon slayers sat in silence for several long minutes before Natsu finally roused himself and looked back at the other two.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I should have been there. But thank you for staying with him and doing what you could."

"You don't have to apologize," Sting said after a moment, the _'not to us'_ implied but not spoken aloud. Natsu wasn't sure if the last bit was something that Sting was actually thinking or if it was just something that the Fairy Tail mage had read into the statement on his own, a product of his guilty conscience. He supposed that it didn't really matter. It was still true.

"And I'm also sorry to make you tell me the whole story again," Natsu continued, his voice strangely flat even though his eyes were a battleground of warring emotions. "I know that it was hard for you. But…There's one more thing I need you to tell me before I leave." He briefly closed his eyes and exhaled, before fixing the twin dragon slayers with another look. "I need you to tell me where he was buried."

Sting and Rogue exchanged looks, their eyes suddenly troubled and uncertain. Natsu got the feeling that there was something they weren't telling him.

"Natsu-san, I really don't think that you should visit the grave," Sting said after a pause.

Natsu stared at him expressionlessly. "I have to," he said flatly.

The twin dragon slayers looked at each other again, and began a half-whispered discussion on whether or not they should tell Natsu what he wanted to know. Natsu listened to their debate with a sense of fearful anticipation.

"It's a really bad idea to tell him," Sting insisted in a low voice.

"Probably," Rogue conceded. "But if we don't tell him, someone else will."

"Maybe they won't be stupid enough," Sting argued.

"Even if they won't tell him, he's going to keep searching for the grave until he finds it."

"But he _won't_ find it unless someone tells him where—"

"Look at him," Rogue interrupted. They both glanced back over at Natsu. "He'll hunt for it the rest of his life if he has to. I don't like it any more than you do, but he has the right to know. And what if he _does_ stumble across it on his own? Imagine if he had no idea of what he was walking into. It would be devastating."

Sting didn't reply for a long moment, and Natsu looked back and forth between the two of them with a bemused expression plastered on his face.

"Alright," Sting said finally. "I still think that he'd be better off not knowing, but if he does find the grave then he'll have to be prepared."

Rogue nodded. "Do you want to tell him or should I?"

"I'll do it," Sting said quickly, shooting him a worried look. He was obviously still concerned about how upset Rogue had gotten.

With that, the Sabertooth mages finally came to an agreement and turned to face Natsu again.

"What is it?" Natsu asked, suddenly fearful. What was so bad that they were scared to tell him even though he had already heard all the lurid details of Gray's death?

Sting hesitated for a moment, still looking torn. He glanced back at Rogue helplessly. "Are you sure that—?"

"Yes."

Sting sighed heavily. "There's something else," he said reluctantly. "Something that happened after Gray died. To be clear, we still don't know why it happened. It has to be something with that curse the demon hit him with. I mean, you have to have realized that something went a little wonky with the curse. It obviously didn't do what it was meant to. It should have just obliterated you two from existence entirely, but something about Gray's new devil slayer magic let him protect you and survive temporarily. You know when half his body became somehow demonic? That might have given him some kind of partial immunity, but it's also the only possible cause of the strange circumstances of his death."

Natsu nodded slowly. He had deduced as much himself. The curse had obviously killed Gray, and it had killed him in a way that it hadn't been intended to kill. Mard Geer had thought Memento Mori had worked when Natsu and Gray had seemingly disappeared entirely, so it was reasonable to assume that complete annihilation was what should have happened. Instead, the curse had killed Gray in a terrible, painful way. Mard Geer had boasted that it was a way to render the victim neither alive nor dead, but completely erased from existence. That clearly hadn't happened.

The only reason Natsu could think of for the change of the curse's effect was the new magic he had once believed to have saved Gray's life. It had, temporarily, at least, thwarted the curse. But it hadn't been able to stop it completely, and it had somehow twisted the curse's effect into something else entirely. It was the only possible explanation for the unexpected effect Memento Mori had had on Gray.

Sting hesitated a moment longer before pressing on. "Well, it managed to somehow alter the curse's intended effect, but it also seemed to react with it in another way that only became apparent after Gray's death."

"How?" Natsu asked, frowning in bewilderment. What else could the mixing of the two incompatible magics have done to his friend?

"Well…" Sting paused and then took a steadying breath. "After Gray's death, something happened. I was standing near his body and all of a sudden it was like I wasn't really there anymore. It was like…Well, what happened was that we were sucked into a lingering memory of Gray's last days. It was like I was reliving Gray's death from his own point of view. I could feel the things he felt and I knew the things he knew. I relived those whole two days from the time he collapsed until the time he died, but it must have only taken a few seconds.

"And then I was back in the room as myself again, but I could feel that memory tugging at me again. I kept getting dragged into it over and over again until I found a way to fight against it. It took a lot of willpower and energy to avoid getting sucked back in, and it wouldn't leave me alone until I left the room and walked a good distance away from the body.

"I wasn't the only one, either. Everyone who got close to his body had the same experience. At first we were too scared to go anywhere near him because we didn't want to get trapped in his memories again, but we eventually steeled ourselves to go get the body and bury it. But even standing near the grave would bring about the memories, so we had to take him quite a ways outside of the city and bury him there, so that no one would walk too close and get stuck in his memory."

Natsu stared at Sting skeptically, trying to wrap his head around this curveball. It didn't make any sense, and he wasn't sure if he really believed it.

"His memories," he said flatly.

Sting nodded. "That's why I don't think you should go to his grave. It's really terrifying and horrible."

Sensing Natsu's doubt, Rogue spoke up. "I know that it seems pretty out there," he conceded, "but it's true. You can ask any of your friends from Fairy Tail—they all experienced it too. We could barely believe it at first either because it was so unexpected and _impossible_. But we think it must be a side effect from the mixing of the devil slayer magic and the demon's curse. Those incompatible magics obviously interacted in strange ways, and this was one of the results, however impossible it seems.

"'Memento mori' means 'memory of death'," he continued quietly. "It's meant to remind you of your own mortality as it erases you from existence. Gray was reliving his own death over and over again before he died—when he died and came back during the dragon attack. We know because we saw what he saw when we got sucked into his memories. The curse made him relive his death, and after he died it made us relive _his_ death. I don't know why. The curse went a little crazy when it came into contact with the devil slayer magic. I don't know why it targeted us once Gray was dead. It's like it couldn't let him go. I just—I don't know."

Natsu stared at him silently for a few moments. The theory actually made a sort of sense in a terribly warped way, but he was temporarily distracted by something else Rogue had said.

"What do you mean, when he died during the dragon attack?"

Sting and Rogue glanced at each other again.

"Apparently he died when the dragons attacked after the Grand Magic Games," Sting answered. "You know how at one point it was like we could see into the future for a minute or so? Apparently what happened was that time was actually _rewound_ one minute. In that minute, Gray died. When time rewound he was able to get out of the way and stay alive.

"I didn't know about it and neither did most of your guildmates. We only found out because of the memories we had to live. Afterwards, Juvia told us about what had happened. Apparently she was there when he died. Lyon too, and someone else as well, I think. Lyon confirmed Juvia's story."

"He never told me," Natsu said dully, still trying to process all this new information.

"It didn't seem like he really told anyone," Rogue offered.

Natsu glanced up. "Lyon was there? When Gray died for real, I mean."

"Yeah." Sting nodded. "He wouldn't leave Gray's side." His blue eyes softened and took on a melancholy edge again. "He was in pretty bad shape afterwards."

"Oh."

Natsu supposed he shouldn't be surprised. Of course Lyon would have stayed with Gray once he heard what had happened. At least Gray had had his adoptive brother by his side at the end, but it made Natsu feel even worse that he himself hadn't been there.

A heavy silence fell over the gathered dragon slayers. It was several minutes before Natsu roused himself and stood slowly.

"I should go," he said quietly, still feeling numb and hollow. "Thank you for telling me everything. And I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry too," Sting replied, his eyes sad and sympathetic. "Good luck, Natsu-san."

Rogue had been quietly writing on a napkin for the past couple minutes, and he suddenly put down his pen and thrust the napkin at Natsu. "Here."

Natsu gingerly took the proffered object and blinked at it uncomprehendingly. It was covered with Rogue's messy scrawl.

"Directions to the grave," the shadow dragon slayer said by means of explanation. He hesitated for a moment. "I didn't know Gray very well," he said finally, "but I wish that I had gotten to know him better. I think that he and I had a lot in common. I could see something of myself when I looked into his eyes. I don't know what he faced in his life, but he had the same haunted eyes that I see when I look in the mirror, as if he spent his life trying to outrun something from his past—or perhaps something of himself—like I have.

"I didn't know him personally, but I can tell that he had a lot of darkness that he spent his life fighting. Sting, and Frosch, of course, have kept me grounded and helped me through my darkest times when I felt like I was starting to lose myself. I could tell that you and Gray were very close. He looked at you the way I look at Sting—as something of a best friend and partner and savior. I think that you helped him the same way that Sting helps me.

"I know that it's devastating that you weren't there for him at the end, but you obviously helped him many other times when he needed you. Don't forget that. And…" He trailed off for a moment, looking uncertain, before forging on. "Remember when I said that sometimes in his almost-lucid periods he seemed as if he was searching for something? At least part of the time, it was you that he was looking for."

Sting blinked at Rogue with a mixture of shock and awe, before smiling a little at the admission and leaning into his side. Rogue made a small sound of acknowledgment but didn't quite meet his friend's gaze, still looking somewhat embarrassed from his confession. Then he turned his attention away from Sting and back to Natsu.

Natsu didn't say anything for a long time. He didn't know what to say to that. It was rather amazing that Rogue—who usually seemed uninterested in anything that didn't involve Gajeel, Sting, or Frosch—had so quickly dissected and understood the relationship between Natsu and Gray. He had been able to see through Gray's mask even though he had barely spoken a handful of words to the ice mage the entire time they had known each other, when it had taken Natsu years to fully understand how wounded Gray was under his cool façade. Natsu supposed that it was because Rogue himself, like he had said, shared a lot in common with Gray. It was still amazing and a little disturbing though.

In truth, Rogue was right. In some ways, Natsu had surreptitiously taken care of Gray when he could see through the ice mage's mask and tell that he was hurting over something. That had only been one facet of their relationship, but it had been there. Gray had also helped Natsu in many ways and their friendship had included a lot of elements unrelated to either of their emotional states, but Natsu had always known that there were times he had to look out for Gray because the ice mage was having a rough time.

Rogue had meant that reminder to be comforting, as if recalling all the times Natsu had been there for Gray could make up for the time that he had not, but it made Natsu feel even worse. So what if he had helped Gray in the past? He hadn't been there when Gray had needed him the most. Gray had died in a truly terrible way, and Natsu hadn't even realized it for a year. What kind of friend did that?

He looked down at the napkin and studied the written instructions for a moment. Then he looked back up at Sabertooth's dragon slayers and took a deep breath.

"Yeah," he said finally, breaking the awkward silence. "Thanks." He glanced down again. "Well, I should be going. Thanks again. And I'm sorry."

Sting and Rogue murmured their goodbyes and watched Natsu with sad, worried eyes. Natsu couldn't take it anymore. He waved in farewell and turned to stride out of the guild hall hastily. As he left the building he looked down at the napkin again, a fierce sense of determination welling up inside him. He knew what he needed to do next.

* * *

 **Note: Well, _there's_ a twist. You know how I said I came up with a convoluted loophole to make Gray not actually be dead? Well, this is the setup. The details will be explained in the sequel. This part was pretty much housekeeping, but it was important housekeeping. The next part is going to be a little different. I'm sure you can probably guess some of the basics from what Sting and Rogue said. It's actually my favorite part, but that's just me. **

**(Random side note: Sting and Rogue actually remind me a lot of Natsu and Gray in some ways. Just me? Ah well, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to bring that up in this chapter.)**


	3. Part 3

**Note:** **A reviewer mentioned that Natsu seemed uncharacteristically calm in the second part, given how he reacts in emotional situations. This is true, and I briefly considered a few different options before settling on what I wrote. I ended up taking the shock and disbelief route for a couple reasons. In part, it's because I do think that it would be super shocking to come back to hear that your best friend has been dead for a year and you didn't even know, so I could see the shock thing happening. The other reason is a kind of "my bad" moment. I wrote this shortly after writing "To Those Left Behind", and I really wasn't in the mood to just write a whole bunch of Natsu angst over Gray dying, because it felt like I was just rehashing "TTLB".**

 **And as you'll see, this part is a little...different.**

* * *

Fairy Tail really hadn't been taking any chances that someone would accidentally stumble across Gray's grave. Natsu followed Rogue's written instructions, and they led him a good way outside of Magnolia, past the outskirts and into the countryside beyond. He walked for a long time before pausing at the top of a hill. A wooden sign had been planted in the ground a few feet away. It said: "Warning: Do not enter. Dangerous dark magic residue lies ahead. Turn back."

What a godawful way to commemorate Gray's resting place.

Natsu blinked at the ugly sign blankly for a moment before looking out at the valley stretched below him. It had to be the most overgrown valley his friends could find. Brambles and other thorny plants covered the ground and grew over top of each other, creating a huge, spiny mess. Natsu supposed that they acted as an extra deterrent for anyone who ran across this area on accident or was foolish enough to keep going despite the warning sign.

There was a small clear patch at the center of the valley floor, and a small slab of gray stone rose up in the middle of it. Natsu swallowed hard. He could turn back now. He didn't have to do this.

But some part of him asserted that he absolutely had to. He had left Gray to die. This would be a fitting penance. After all, hadn't he insisted that he had to know _everything_ about Gray's death? Sting and Rogue had told him a lot, but if what they had said about the memory trap was true, then Natsu could walk down to that grave and see _exactly_ what had happened. He could experience what Gray had experienced, and he felt like he owed his friend that. If Gray was here then he would probably disagree with that line of reasoning, but he wasn't here, was he?

Everything Natsu had heard about Gray's death had been horrible and painful and dark, so it was natural that he would be apprehensive about experiencing it himself. But…there was still a desperate need smoldering inside him, a need to _know_. He had to know exactly what fate he had abandoned Gray to. He had to know what Gray had been thinking and feeling. He had to know how Gray had suffered and died. He didn't _want_ to know, but he _had_ to.

So, taking a fortifying breath, Natsu began working his way down the hillside. He fought his way through the vicious snarl of briars and brambles with a great deal of difficulty, welcoming the pain of the thorns that snagged at his skin and drew forth small beads of blood. Such pain was the least he deserved.

He was only a few feet away from the grave when he got confirmation that the Sabertooth mages had been telling him the truth. There was something clawing at the edges of his mind, fighting to take over his senses and show him visions of terrible things. Natsu fought it, gritting his teeth against the foreign feeling.

He had to…had to…

With a grunt he managed to pull himself the last few steps through the thorny vines that were tugging at his clothes and slicing through his skin. The brambles finally let go, and he stumbled and fell to his knees. He found himself staring directly at Gray's tombstone.

And now that he was here, he gave up. He stopped fighting the memories scratching painfully at his soul. Curling into a ball, he let Gray's memories sweep over him.

* * *

 _Something was wrong. Something was very wrong._

 _His mind continued to scream its warning over and over again, but he didn't have time to take stock of the situation right now. He knew that the curse had done something terrible to him—it was doing something to his mind and body, ripping and tearing at them in a furious frenzy. God, it hurt. But Natsu needed him again, so he had to stand up despite the pain and the sense of wrongness that pervaded his body._

 _He dragged himself to his feet, staggering as he fought desperately to stay standing instead of toppling right back over. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he looked up at the sky, to see Mard Geer grab on to Natsu as they hurtled towards the ground._

 _"Gray!" Natsu called._

 _It was now or never. He summoned up some of his father's magic and formed it into a bow. The demon magic clawed at his insides and he almost lost his focus, but he managed to hurriedly shoot the bow before it disintegrated in his hands._

 _(Something was terribly wrong.)_

 _He hurt so much that he couldn't feel even a passing sense of satisfaction when Mard Geer was hit by his devil slaying magic and fell to the ground in defeat. Natsu was falling too. For a split second he brushed off his friend's predicament—Natsu was durable and could take a fall—but the speed at which the dragon slayer was falling would ensure that Natsu took a lot of damage on impact._

 _He had already saved Natsu's life once today—there was no way in hell he'd let his friend get so hurt from something stupid like a fall._

 _So with a hiss of pain and a flurry of trembling limbs, he lunged forward, forcing his unresponsive legs to propel him towards Natsu. He didn't know how he made it across the crater in time to catch the dragon slayer since he could barely move and was afraid that he'd collapse at any second, but by some miracle, he reached Natsu just in time. The dragon slayer hit him at a tremendous speed, and he was driven to one knee by the force. He grunted in pain at the impact and his arms shook terribly as he fought to support Natsu even though he himself didn't have any strength left._

 _He hung his head and sucked in ragged breaths, trying to get air past the overpowering pain and exhaustion. It felt like he was suffocating._

 _(Something was definitely wrong here.)_

 _"Gray…Are you alright?"_

 _He met Natsu's eyes fearfully. No, he wasn't alright. He wasn't alright at all, but he didn't know what was wrong with him either._

 _"I—I don't—"_

 _'I—I don't know, but something is terribly, terribly wrong.'_

 _But then Zeref appeared out of nowhere and Natsu was distracted. The dragon slayer stood with some difficulty, and he followed suit, feeling no desire to be on his knees in front of the dark mage. His limbs weren't responding properly and his movements were jerky and uncoordinated. He managed to stagger to his feet, but found himself swaying back and forth, his legs trembling with the effort of keeping him upright._

 _Zeref was talking and destroying Mard Geer, but he paid them little attention. His mind was fuzzy and his senses were dull and seemed to be fading at a rapid rate. He lifted one hand and peered down at it blearily, blinking to clear his hazy vision. His whole hand was trembling violently and he couldn't stop it. It shouldn't be shaking like that. It shouldn't be…_

 _He bit back a pained whimper as his body temperature suddenly spiked. He was used to being cool, but now he was getting terribly hot. It felt like he was burning up from the inside out, and he stifled another moan, not wanting to show weakness in front of Zeref._

 _And the trembling was getting worse. He tightened all his muscles in an attempt to control the trembling, but all it seemed to do was throw off his balance even more, and he staggered a half-step to the right in a desperate bid to keep from toppling over._

 _(Something was really, really wrong.)_

 _Physical pain was something he had dealt with many times before, but something was different about this. And it wasn't only the pain. It felt like the curse was trying to hijack his mind as well, clawing at the edges of his awareness and threatening to pull him into darkness. He didn't know what would happen if he gave in to that strange force, but he feared that he would lose himself. It terrified him._

 _His attention was focused inward on the terrifying changes taking over his body and mind, and he didn't even notice that Zeref had vanished until Natsu turned to look at him again. The dragon slayer opened his mouth to say something, but then Igneel and Acnologia went streaking through the sky above them. There was a loud sound and a great cloud of dust as the dragons crashed into the ground a good distance away._

 _He saw the fear spread across Natsu's face._

 _"Igneel…"_

 _He pushed aside his own pain long enough to feel a twinge of sympathy for his friend. Natsu had just now found his father again, and it looked like the dragon slayer might be about to lose Igneel all over again. He could sympathize. He had just lost his father again as well, and he desperately wished that his friend didn't have to feel the same pain._

 _He expected Natsu to run after Igneel right away, but instead the dragon slayer turned back to him. An indecisive, torn look was plastered on Natsu's face, and he suddenly knew why the dragon slayer hadn't left immediately._

 _"Go to him," he said, having to work hard to push the words past his shallow breathing and tight throat. His throat was burning up and torn with pain, and it took a monumental effort to form any words at all, especially considering that his teeth had started chattering in a way that had nothing to do with the cold._

 _"But…Are you alright, Gray?"_

 _No, he was not alright. He was not alright at all. Something was terribly, terribly wrong. He was fighting just to stay standing, to keep some kind of control over the shaking, to keep breathing past the searing pain. He was burning alive, he was suffocating, he was fading. Something was scratching at his mind and trying to take control, and the pain was so terrible that all he wanted to do was pass out so that he didn't have to feel it anymore._

 _Actually, he might be dying. He realized that that was a very real possibility._

 _But he couldn't make himself tell Natsu any of that, because if Natsu knew what was happening to him, the dragon slayer would stay here instead of going to Igneel. And if Igneel was dying…He would never forgive himself if Natsu missed the chance to say goodbye to his father because of him. Natsu needed to go make sure that Igneel was okay, or say goodbye if the dragon was not. When Natsu came back he could tell the dragon slayer what was going on, but until then…Natsu couldn't know or the dragon slayer wouldn't leave._

 _So he straightened himself out as much as he could, clinging to this newfound determination. He clenched his teeth and locked his muscles in an attempt to reduce some of the shaking, and made himself look as okay as he possibly could at this moment._

 _"I'm fine."_

 _(Something was terribly wrong.)_

 _Natsu still looked uncertain._ _"But—"_

 _"Go," he insisted, trying to sound more commanding than desperate. It was difficult._

 _He locked eyes with Natsu and tried to force out any of the pain and fear that lingered in his own gaze. Nodding as decisively as he could, he prayed that Natsu would just go already, before he couldn't keep pretending any longer._

 _The dragon slayer was looking past him now, but he was too absorbed in his pain to bother turning to see what it was Natsu was looking at. The pain was getting worse and worse, and darkness was eating away at the edges of his vision as the agony threatened to render him unconscious. He longed for the relief unconsciousness would provide, but he couldn't let himself pass out until Natsu was gone, and he was still afraid of what the entity pressing at his mind would do if he fell unconscious. And the terrible burning was getting worse and the tremors were getting even harder to control and his whole body felt as if it had been torn to pieces._

 _And then Natsu was finally, finally leaving and he almost keeled over in relief right there, but he had to wait until Natsu disappeared in case the dragon slayer looked back. His vision had disintegrated terribly by this point, but he fixed his eyes on a bobbing smudge of bright pink and watched it with an unfocused gaze until it disappeared from sight._

 _That was when he gave in, because he really, truly, could not fight this anymore. He let go, barely feeling his legs buckle or the impact of his body hitting the ground. Someone was screaming at him, calling out something to him, but reality was fading fast, and he couldn't make out the fuzzy noises. His vision further deteriorated into a mess of washed-out blurs and smears of faded color, but he kept his eyes open anyway. He couldn't see much of anything, but he was too afraid to let the darkness take him—too afraid of that curse fighting him for his mind._

 _He was dimly aware that his entire body was shaking horribly, and he suddenly began coughing up pools of dark liquid, his whole body heaving with the effort even as his burning throat screamed in protest. There was still that terrible fire clawing at his insides and there was pain everywhere, pulling all of his awareness to it so that he couldn't pay attention to the world around him even if he wanted to. Although he didn't really want to, right now. He didn't care enough. All he knew was pain and it tore at him and ripped him to shreds until he couldn't believe that there was enough of him left to still feel it. And the pain was even worse because he was still feebly fighting at the intrusive force poking at his mind, because he knew that if he gave into it, it would be all over._

 _It hurt so much and he needed to scream because this pain was tearing him apart, but his throat was raw and coated with blood and wouldn't obey him. He couldn't force anything other than blood out of his mouth past the labored breaths he needed to prevent himself from suffocating. And then his awareness of what was happening to his body began to slowly fade away. He was convulsing, he was freezing, he was burning, he was coughing up blood, he was dying, but all he was aware of now was a nebulous sense of pain frequently disrupted by sharp jolts of agony, and of that invasive curse still trying to rip his mind apart._

 _It was all pain and there was something terribly, terribly wrong here. His body was rebelling and jerking and bleeding and dying, and it was all he could do to just hang on for a few more moments. And that curse, that sentient thing that wanted to play with his mind and twist his memories and destroy his sense of himself…He had to fight, had to fight because…because…_

 _(Something was terribly wrong.)_

 _It was the curse, the dark thing fighting him. That was what was wrong. It was the curse that was terribly wrong, he realized. The seizures and the blood and the burning were horribly painful, but it was that little piece of black magic eating away at his mind that was truly wrong. And so he fought it, if for no other reason than that it was foreign and wrong and didn't belong here._

 _And then his vision started to clear and he blinked slowly, his eyes sluggishly moving enough for him to take in the room around him. It was hard to move even his eyes, as if he was forgetting how to control his own body. He couldn't seem to remember how to control his limbs. They seemed almost foreign to him, but that wasn't right, because they belonged there. It was the curse that was wrong._

 _"Gray! Gray!"_

 _A blonde-haired girl swam in and out of focus as he stared up at her blankly. The girl was saying something, but he was already slipping away again and she disappeared in a haze of blurred colors that soon faded into black._

 _And then there was only the pain again, for a constant companion, and the curse that he fought tooth and nail, even though he was starting to lose traction in the fight. He didn't know how long it had been before the slimy thing invading his mind finally found a weak point and broke through. One minute it was just pain, and the next the curse was sucking him into memories. Memories that were his. They were, weren't they? But maybe different, because he didn't remember things like this—fuzzy, half-formed things that held a kernel of truth but had lost all the fine detail._

 _…_

 _He needed to tell her something, this blue-haired girl._

 _But as he was opening his mouth, he saw one of those beasts rise up behind her—one of those dragon spawn creatures they had been fighting._

 _And it was going to shoot her while she wasn't looking,_

 _so without thinking,_

 _he pushed her out of the way._

 _He felt the shot go straight through his chest._

 _Looking down, he could see the gaping hole there._

 _He blinked at it uncomprehendingly for a moment, watching the_

 _blood_

 _pour_

 _down._

 _And then there was the screaming—that blue-haired girl and another girl and a man. He looked up to tell them that_

 _it was okay,_

 _but then more dragonlings appeared, and_

 _he could feel the searing pain as they shot him full of holes until_

 _there was nothing left of him._

 _It was just pain and blood and screaming._

 _And then there was_

 _one_

 _final_

 _shot_

 _to his head, and everything went_

 _blessedly dark._

 _…_

 _He clawed his way out of the maybe-memory, gasping for breath. The air chafed at his raw throat and brought pain with it, but he almost welcomed the pain now, because pain meant that he wasn't dead._

 _He wasn't dead._

 _(But something was terribly wrong.)_

 _He really, really wasn't._

 _He might have died, but he…Well, he was here now, wasn't he? If he was dying now, he couldn't have died then. Or he had. It had been…_

 _Ultear!_

 _How could he have forgotten? Ultear had rewound time and he had managed to avoid death the second time around. And that blue-haired girl had been…Juvia. Yes, that sounded right. And the other screams had belonged to Meredy and Lyon._

 _He held on to that precious knowledge as tightly as he could, terrified that it would slip out of his fingers at any moment, because the curse was still trying to drag him right back into that twisted almost-memory. And when he fell into the almost-memory, he had lost everything. If he slipped back into it again, he feared that he would lose all the knowledge he had just regained. He would lose the names and the faces and the knowledge that he hadn't died for good._

 _"Gray?"_

 _He narrowed his eyes slightly, focusing in on the white-haired man sitting beside him. There was something familiar about the voice. The face tugged at his memory too, but it was the voice that seemed the most familiar. Oh, right. The last time he had heard that voice, it had been screaming._

 _He tried to say Lyon's name, but he couldn't seem to make his mouth work. It was even worse than last time, as if reliving the not-quite-memory had made him forget how to control his own body. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised—it had made him forget a lot of things. But he had also remembered eventually, so maybe if he kept trying to move…_

 _"I'm so sorry, Gray. Please…You have to get better."_

 _He wanted to wipe away Lyon's tears. The other mage looked so broken, so afraid. It must be because this man was…this man was…_

 _'Brother,' whispered a little voice in his mind. The curse snarled in anger and tried to rip that little piece of knowledge away, but he held on._

 _This man was his brother, in spirit if not in blood. Yes. He could almost remember this silver-haired boy dancing across his childhood. He could almost remember for a fraction of a second, and then the memories slipped away in a swirling blur of color and faded sound. But the feeling remained, and he wanted to comfort this man he loved like a brother._

 _He tried to open his mouth and force some words out, but instead his entire body heaved in protest, and he found himself coughing up a thick, dark liquid as he struggled for air. Lyon was grabbing him and shouting for help, but the pain took over again, and he was lost in a haze of dreamlike nothingness once more._

 _Not really dreamlike, he supposed. It was more like a nightmare._

 _(Because something was very, very wrong.)_

 _At one point he was almost semi-lucid again. He didn't know how much time had passed, but the pain receded a little and his vision cleared enough for him to make out hazy swathes of color. They were people, he realized. He should know these people._

 _He didn't know these people._

 _He panicked._

 _(Something was terribly wrong.)_

 _How did he know these people? He must know them. They seemed so familiar. They were calling to him._

 _He gasped in relief, the sharp breath tearing at his raw throat as the knowledge finally started coming back to him in a piecemeal fashion. There was that blonde-haired girl from before—'Lucy', his memories whispered. There was Lyon, a look of terrible grief accentuating the red-rimmed eyes and tearstained cheeks. Slowly letting his eyes drift across the room, he could see Erza, Mira, Jii-chan, Cana, Juvia. Was that Loke, over there?_

 _And there—Sting and Rogue? What were Sabertooth mages doing here? A hazy recollection of the twin dragon slayers' fight against their old guild master grudging resurfaced in his mind. They would have been nearby where he and Natsu had fought Mard Geer. He realized suddenly that they must have been what Natsu was looking at, before the fire dragon slayer had left. Then the people who had been screaming for him when he first collapsed…_

 _He wished they would leave. If they were here, it meant that they felt some responsibility for his well-being. Perhaps Natsu had asked them to look out for him. They couldn't help him now, and he didn't want them to feel like they failed. He absently wished that he had bothered getting to know them a little better before this mess. If they had to watch him die, they should at least know who he was._

 _His eyes drifted on. There were Wendy and Charle over in the corner. Poor Wendy. She looked terrible. He wondered if she had tried healing him. It must not have worked._

 _A tall, pink-haired lady stepped up beside him, her face lined and troubled. He knew her too. She had one of those really strange names…Porlyusica? She was playing with vials and potions, and he realized that she was trying to keep him alive. He wanted to tell her that it was a losing battle. He didn't think that she was having much of an effect on his health right now._

 _There were a lot of his friends here. Now would be the perfect time to say something, if only his body would obey him. His coughing subsided and he felt a sudden surge of hope as he felt his muscles finally decide to reluctantly follow his instructions._

 _But that stab of hope made him lose his concentration in the fight against the memory-curse, and before he could say a word, he was dragged back down again._

 _…_

 _He needed to tell her something, this blue-haired girl._

 _But as he was opening his mouth, he saw one of those beasts rise up behind her—one of those dragon spawn creatures they had been fighting._

 _And it was going to shoot her while she wasn't looking,_

 _so without thinking,_

 _he pushed her out of the way._

 _He felt the shot go straight through his chest._

 _Looking down, he could see the gaping hole there._

 _He blinked at it uncomprehendingly for a moment, watching the_

 _blood_

 _pour_

 _down._

 _And then there was the screaming—that blue-haired girl and another girl and a man. He looked up to tell them that_

 _it was okay,_

 _but then more dragonlings appeared, and_

 _he could feel the searing pain as they shot him full of holes until_

 _there was nothing left of him._

 _It was just pain and blood and screaming._

 _And then there was_

 _one_

 _final_

 _shot_

 _to his head, and everything went_

 _blessedly dark._

 _…_

 _He fought his way out, his breaths labored and ragged as he managed to win this fight. He would lose the war, but he would win whatever battles he could. There was a reason he had to keep fighting, but he couldn't quite remember what that reason might be. All he knew was that he couldn't give up yet, even if the end result would be the same regardless of what he did._

 _Because he wasn't dead. He wasn't. Right?_

 _His vision was clearing again, just a little, and although the pain kept up its relentless assault, he almost felt as if he was floating in nothingness. It was a strangely dreamlike quality. Dreamlike? He felt as if he had had that thought before, but the little shred of memory slipped through his fingers._

 _"Gray?"_

 _He blinked slowly, his eyes travelling the length of the room. There was a white-haired man by his side, leaning over him and peering down at him with a worried and fearful expression just barely tinged with hope. He wanted to ask why this man was asking him about colors. That seemed an odd way to greet someone. He almost wanted to say 'blue' back, just to see the reaction._

 _But then it hit him. Gray wasn't a color. Gray was his name. His eyes widened slightly in fear. He had forgotten his own name. What else had he forgotten? He desperately ransacked his memory, trying to fit all the shattered pieces back together again._

 _Lyon. This was Lyon. He knew Lyon. Lyon was bossy and annoying and used ice-make magic like him. Lyon was like a brother. Lyon, Lyon, Lyon, he repeated in his head, afraid that he would forget again._

 _Lyon turned away to look back at the doorway._

 _"Porlyusica-san!"_

 _There were shuffling noises and muffled voices from outside the room before a crowd of people suddenly surged in. Gray's eyes darted back and forth, desperately trying to remember these people. He searched for their names and anything he knew about them._

 _Blonde. Lucy. Celestial spirit mage. Loud and sometimes bossy, but loyal. Wanted to be a writer. Lucy, Lucy, Lucy._

 _Redhead. Erza. Requip mage. Scary as hell, tough as nails, and a great friend. He found a vague, half-formed memory of tears and a riverbank. Shouldn't cry. Erza, Erza, Erza._

 _He repeated the process for several other people before a tall, pink-haired woman pushed past them and made her way to his bedside. Porlyusica. Grumpy, always talked about hating humans, usually liked keeping everyone out of sickrooms while she worked._

 _She must be pretty worried about him if she wasn't kicking everyone out now. It didn't seem like a good sign for him._

 _"What?" she asked sharply._

 _"I think he's…semi-lucid, maybe," Lyon replied, looking back at him. "Look at his eyes."_

 _Porlyusica bent over to examine him, but his eyes had already drifted away. He felt the desperate need to see everyone in Fairy Tail. He was dying and he knew it, but he wanted to see everyone one last time. His gaze jumped from person to person. A few people were missing, but he could vaguely recall seeing their blurry faces during the other times he had reached a similar state of semi-consciousness. He had to know that they were all okay. He had seen everyone, even Sting and Rogue who weren't Fairy Tail at all—there they were, lurking in a corner, looking lost and out of place—except for one person._

 _His shallow breathing became more rapid as he frantically searched for the one missing person. Natsu. Where was Natsu?_

 _The pink-haired woman was saying something and fumbling with her potions. She looked a little panicked herself, as she took in the change in his heartrate and breathing. He wanted to tell her to give it up already. Her potions weren't helping him. The only reason he was still alive was because he was fighting the curse digging at his mind. He had to fight until he had seen all of his friends, but Natsu wasn't here. Had something happened? Was the dragon slayer alright? Had Natsu ever even come back at all? He grimaced. He just wanted to see everyone one last time. He needed to know that they were all going to be okay, even if he was not._

 _And then another surge of panic hit him, because it occurred to him that even if Natsu had not come back yet, the dragon slayer certainly would eventually. And by the time Natsu came back…he would be dead. Oh God, the dragon slayer would be devastated. Everyone would be, of course, but he had a bad feeling that Natsu would be one of the worst off._

 _Even though he should really be worrying about himself right now—he was dying, after all—he instead found himself worrying about everyone else, because they were all going to be so broken and he didn't want that. He wanted them to be happy, and he didn't want them to remember him like this._

 _He couldn't make out what the medicine woman was saying because his panicked breathing and heartbeat had begun pushing him into another attack. Things were fading—shapes, colors, sounds, knowledge._

 _He knew that he was waiting for someone, searching for someone, fighting for someone. He knew that there were people around him, even if he wasn't quite sure who they were. Even if he wasn't quite sure who he was or what they meant to him._

 _Now it was just the pain again. His back arched as he went into another seizure, and a terrible, suffocating feeling let him know that blood was forcing its way up again. He coughed weakly to expel it, even in the throes of convulsions. He was burning up again and shaking and the pain was everywhere and he could feel himself slipping away, the malicious entity at the fringes of his mind winning dominance once more._

 _And these people were shouting and trying to hold him down. The pink-haired woman was leaning over him, a terrified look on her face. A sudden flash of knowledge, gone as suddenly as it appeared, warned him that if Porlyusica of all people was terrified, there was something terribly wrong with him._

 _It meant that he was dying._

 _And as he accepted his inevitable demise, he was dragged into the darkness again._

 _…_

 _He needed to tell her something, this blue-haired girl._

 _But as he was opening his mouth, he saw one of those beasts rise up behind her—one of those dragon spawn creatures they had been fighting._

 _And it was going to shoot her while she wasn't looking,_

 _so without thinking,_

 _he pushed her out of the way._

 _He felt the shot go straight through his chest._

 _Looking down, he could see the gaping hole there._

 _He blinked at it uncomprehendingly for a moment, watching the_

 _blood_

 _pour_

 _down._

 _And then there was the screaming—that blue-haired girl and another girl and a man. He looked up to tell them that_

 _it was okay,_

 _but then more dragonlings appeared, and_

 _he could feel the searing pain as they shot him full of holes until_

 _there was nothing left of him._

 _It was just pain and blood and screaming._

 _And then there was_

 _one_

 _final_

 _shot_

 _to his head, and everything went_

 _blessedly dark._

 _…_

 _Not dead, not dead. Time had rewound, time had—_

 _Something malignant whispered into his mind, interrupting his panicked train of thought._

 _(('What a stupid idea. Time can't rewind. You died. You're dead.'))_

 _He couldn't accept that._

 _(Something was horribly wrong.)_

 _He was searching for something, looking for something, even though he wasn't quite sure what it was that he so desperately wanted to find. A haze of pink swept across his bleary vision and his heart jumped in happiness. Natsu! He wasn't quite sure who Natsu was, but he thought that might be who he was searching for. But his vision cleared a little to reveal a pink-haired woman, and he instinctively knew that this was not Natsu._

 _She was saying something to him, but the ringing in his ears prevented him from hearing her properly, and he didn't have much interest in what she had to say anyway. She wasn't who he was looking for. His hopes plunged like a rock and he let himself drift away. He knew that his search was futile._

 _He began to spasm again and the sticky blood was everywhere and his body was freezing and shaking. Then the heat returned and started eating at his insides again. He opened his mouth to scream, but only blood came out._

 _"Gray! Gray!"_

 _It was chaos around him and within him, with the shouting, panicked people and the terrible pain. All these people yelling seemingly random things. He didn't know why they were yelling about colors, and he wished they would stop._

 _Stop, stop, stop._

 _He didn't know._

 _(Because something was terribly wrong.)_

 _There were things he should know but he didn't know them, so he slipped away again._

 _…_

 _He needed to tell her something, this blue-haired girl._

 _But as he was opening his mouth, he saw one of those beasts rise up behind her—one of those dragon spawn creatures they had been fighting._

 _And it was going to shoot her while she wasn't looking,_

 _so without thinking,_

 _he pushed her out of the way._

 _He felt the shot go straight through his chest._

 _Looking down, he could see the gaping hole there._

 _He blinked at it uncomprehendingly for a moment, watching the_

 _blood_

 _pour_

 _down._

 _And then there was the screaming—that blue-haired girl and another girl and a man. He looked up to tell them that_

 _it was okay,_

 _but then more dragonlings appeared, and_

 _he could feel the searing pain as they shot him full of holes until_

 _there was nothing left of him._

 _It was just pain and blood and screaming._

 _And then there was_

 _one_

 _final_

 _shot_

 _to his head, and everything went_

 _blessedly dark._

 _…_

 _(('Dead, dead, dead.'))_

 _There was only the pain. It tore at him and twisted his insides. There was something terrible and dark trying to dig through his mind and reshape his memories. He was supposed to be fighting it. He didn't know why, but he should be fighting. He should be—_

 _…_

 _He needed to tell her something, this blue-haired girl._

 _But as he was opening his mouth, he saw one of those beasts rise up behind her—one of those dragon spawn creatures they had been fighting._

 _And it was going to shoot her while she wasn't looking,_

 _so without thinking,_

 _he pushed her out of the way._

 _He felt the shot go straight through his chest._

 _Looking down, he could see the gaping hole there._

 _He blinked at it uncomprehendingly for a moment, watching the_

 _blood_

 _pour_

 _down._

 _And then there was the screaming—that blue-haired girl and another girl and a man. He looked up to tell them that_

 _it was okay,_

 _but then more dragonlings appeared, and_

 _he could feel the searing pain as they shot him full of holes until_

 _there was nothing left of him._

 _It was just pain and blood and screaming._

 _And then there was_

 _one_

 _final_

 _shot_

 _to his head, and everything went_

 _blessedly dark._

 _…_

 _(('You are dead.'))_

 _He wasn't dead. He wasn't._

 _Was he?_

 _He wasn't sure he knew anymore. The line between life and death had been blurred and smudged until he no longer knew on which side of it he stood. Was this never-ending nightmare just the last throes of life? Or was this what death really was?_

 _He couldn't say for sure. He wasn't sure he could even tell the difference anymore. Life and death seemed to be such nebulous terms, lacking any real sense of meaning._

 _He was vaguely aware of fearful shouts coming from blurry patches of color, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what they were or why they were important. All he knew was pain. And he knew that he should be fighting this lingering dark magic, but he was losing the fight and slipping away. There was something he was supposed to be fighting for, but he couldn't remember what it was and it didn't seem terribly important anymore._

 _…_

 _He needed to tell her something, this blue-haired girl._

 _But as he was opening his mouth, he saw one of those beasts rise up behind her—one of those dragon spawn creatures they had been fighting._

 _And it was going to shoot her while she wasn't looking,_

 _so without thinking,_

 _he pushed her out of the way._

 _He felt the shot go straight through his chest._

 _Looking down, he could see the gaping hole there._

 _He blinked at it uncomprehendingly for a moment, watching the_

 _blood_

 _pour_

 _down._

 _And then there was the screaming—that blue-haired girl and another girl and a man. He looked up to tell them that_

 _it was okay,_

 _but then more dragonlings appeared, and_

 _he could feel the searing pain as they shot him full of holes until_

 _there was nothing left of him._

 _It was just pain and blood and screaming._

 _And then there was_

 _one_

 _final_

 _shot_

 _to his head, and everything went_

 _blessedly dark._

 _…_

 _(('Remember your mortality.'))_

 _It was his friends, he realized with a sudden jolt of clarity. He searched desperately, relieved to see everyone that he almost-remembered. Everyone but one._

 _But he couldn't really blame Natsu. After all…_

 _…_

 _He needed to tell her something, this blue-haired girl._

 _But as he was opening his mouth, he saw one of those beasts rise up behind her—one of those dragon spawn creatures they had been fighting._

 _And it was going to shoot her while she wasn't looking,_

 _so without thinking,_

 _he pushed her out of the way._

 _He felt the shot go straight through his chest._

 _Looking down, he could see the gaping hole there._

 _He blinked at it uncomprehendingly for a moment, watching the_

 _blood_

 _pour_

 _down._

 _And then there was the screaming—that blue-haired girl and another girl and a man. He looked up to tell them that_

 _it was okay,_

 _but then more dragonlings appeared, and_

 _he could feel the searing pain as they shot him full of holes until_

 _there was nothing left of him._

 _It was just pain and blood and screaming._

 _And then there was_

 _one_

 _final_

 _shot_

 _to his head, and everything went_

 _blessedly dark._

 _…_

 _…He had told Natsu to go. And maybe…_

 _(('Dead.'))_

 _…_

 _He needed to tell her something, this blue-haired girl._

 _But as he was opening his mouth, he saw one of those beasts rise up behind her—one of those dragon spawn creatures they had been fighting._

 _And it was going to shoot her while she wasn't looking,_

 _so without thinking,_

 _he pushed her out of the way._

 _He felt the shot go straight through his chest._

 _Looking down, he could see the gaping hole there._

 _He blinked at it uncomprehendingly for a moment, watching the_

 _blood_

 _pour_

 _down._

 _And then there was the screaming—that blue-haired girl and another girl and a man. He looked up to tell them that_

 _it was okay,_

 _but then more dragonlings appeared, and_

 _he could feel the searing pain as they shot him full of holes until_

 _there was nothing left of him._

 _It was just pain and blood and screaming._

 _And then there was_

 _one_

 _final_

 _shot_

 _to his head, and everything went_

 _blessedly dark._

 _…_

 _…Just maybe…_

 _(('Die.'))_

 _…_

 _He needed to tell her something, this blue-haired girl._

 _But as he was opening his mouth, he saw one of those beasts rise up behind her—one of those dragon spawn creatures they had been fighting._

 _And it was going to shoot her while she wasn't looking,_

 _so without thinking,_

 _he pushed her out of the way._

 _He felt the shot go straight through his chest._

 _Looking down, he could see the gaping hole there._

 _He blinked at it uncomprehendingly for a moment, watching the_

 _blood_

 _pour_

 _down._

 _And then there was the screaming—that blue-haired girl and another girl and a man. He looked up to tell them that_

 _it was okay,_

 _but then more dragonlings appeared, and_

 _he could feel the searing pain as they shot him full of holes until_

 _there was nothing left of him._

 _It was just pain and blood and screaming._

 _And then there was_

 _one_

 _final_

 _shot_

 _to his head, and everything went_

 _blessedly dark._

 _…_

 _…It was time for him to go too._

* * *

Natsu surfaced with a gasp, and the tears he had been too numb to shed before began streaming down his face as he finally started to sob. The memory was tugging at his mind again, wanting to replay itself. He remembered Sting's warning about how the others had been dragged into it over and over again until they had left the vicinity of the body.

He should get up and go. He had seen what he had come here to see, so now he should go back to find Lucy and Happy and the rest of Fairy Tail. He had promised to go back to them. And he would. Just…maybe not right now.

Natsu curled into an even tighter ball on the hard ground, his back pressed against Gray's gravestone as he cried uncontrollably. Gray was dead. Oh God, Gray was really, truly dead. It had seemed so impossible when the others had told him, but now he had seen it for himself, had felt it for himself, and he finally had to admit that it was true. He was never going to be able to talk to his best friend again. He would never be able to laugh with Gray or fight with Gray or tease Gray. They couldn't go on jobs together or share jokes or play pranks. Gray was gone. Gray was…Gray was just gone. Natsu missed him so much that it felt like there was a gaping hole in his chest where his heart should have been.

Natsu had left and not come back, and _this_ had happened. It was terrible and horrible and he didn't want to experience it again. But Gray had had to experience it because he had saved Natsu, and the dragon slayer had repaid him by leaving him behind. So instead of escaping from this haunted ground, Natsu remained curled up on the ground and let the memories sweep over him again and again so that he could relive it all once more. It seemed a fitting punishment for what he had done.

He had left Gray, but for now, even if only for a little while, he would stay.

* * *

 **Note: Poor Gray. Poor Natsu. Poor everyone, really. Because apparently my main goal here was to rip out everyone's hearts and stomp all over them. I guess it's because (as my dear PM buddy always likes to point out) I must be a sadist x.x  
**

 **Okay, sorry if the consistent use of "he" for Gray got a little confusing, but I tried to temper it with always using other people's names or descriptions, even if it sounded a little awkward. There's a couple reasons I chose to do it that way. You might eventually figure out one of them from the sequel. Also, sorry I had to keep repeating the curse-memory bit, but it seemed more authentic to do it that way, and I figured y'all would be fine just skipping over it after the first time it appeared.**

 **Again, the sequel is posted under the title "Because I Need You to Stay".**

 **emmahoshi: I know I don't usually reply to you directly, because I usually reply to everyone else via PM but I can't do that for you and I feel like replying directly on the story can really clutter up A/N's. But I just wanted to say that you actually kind of amaze me. For one, you're almost always one of the first people to review, even though you shouldn't be getting notifications when I post like some people do (good grief, how do you always know right away when I've posted something? XD) You're always remembering little, seemingly unimportant details from earlier parts of my stories, recalling random things from my A/N's, and even noticing changing word counts. I honestly don't know how you do it. So I just wanted to say thanks for your continued support. I always enjoy reading your reviews. I don't know what I did to deserve such a dedicated reviewer XD (EDIT: Don't apologize x.x If I was a better person then I'd always respond to you in A/N's, especially since I know you always come back eventually to look at things again. To be honest, I like friendship fics a lot more than romance too, and there just aren't enough of them : ( I usually post around 11 p.m. - 1 a.m. my time, because I'm not a morning person at all, ha ha. Glad the timing seems to work out for both of us XD And don't apologize for long reviews - I like reading them, ha ha.)**


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